Just a Glimpse
by Faeline
Summary: What happened after Mohinder left the Petrelli Mansion in ".07%?"  Sylar/Mohinder  "The apartment is a silent wasteland of loose sheets of paper, congealed jewel spots of blood, glittering glass shards and the shining, metallic innards of the laptop."


**Author's Notes:** Post "Parasite," what I imagine could be a missing scene from ".07%." (I'm sure I've taken a little timeline liberty.) I thought there would be more to this, but my muses tell me it's standing as is.

* * *

"_**Just a Glimpse**_"

* * *

Mohinder leaves the Petrellis'—leaves a mother to her grief—and finds himself at loose ends.

The thought of going back to his apartment clamps a freezing hand around his spinal chord. So he sits in his taxi, with the engine running, staring at the empty street through the rear view mirror.

Until the blood on the backseat catches his eye.

Peter's blood.

He spends the better part of an hour scrubbing the interior of the taxi clean at a rundown car wash in an equally run down neighborhood. And afterward, he holes up in the corner of a small café, its windows so caked by years of grime they gave the illusion of twilight. The thick, bitter coffee they serve tastes like penance.

He drinks four cups before he decides to go to a hotel, using what little cash he has on him.

The next afternoon, late, Mohinder works up the nerve to return to the apartment.

And still, he debates calling the police; reporting a break in, a burglary, something. Ultimately decides against it. What good would the police do against someone like Sylar?

On his own, he stands in the hall, takes the gun out of his bag and opens the door slowly, keeping himself hidden behind the wood as he listens for movement inside.

The apartment is a silent wasteland of loose sheets of paper, congealed jewel spots of blood, glittering glass shards and the shining, metallic innards of the laptop.

Exactly has he left it.

Save for the absence of the killer buried beneath his father's broken map.

It takes him two hours to set the apartment right; to dispose of the laptop and the broken IV stand, to sweep up the glass and scrub the blood off the floor.

By the time the apartment is—not neat—but passably clean, he's covered in dirt and his clothes are clinging to him, damp with sweat and the humidity that's on the rise outside.

A breeze has picked up and through one half-open window he can smell the rich ozone scent of a coming storm.

In the dim light of the bedroom, he strips off his shirt, throws it haphazardly toward the file box he's been using as a laundry bin and sits on the bed. His body aches and there's a knot under the bruise on his left calf—a trophy from being pressed into a ceiling beam—that's gotten worse with his non-stop cleaning.

Toeing his shoes off, he falls back across the bed, wondering if he has the energy for a shower, when he catches sight of the shirt folded on top of his pillow.

It's his favorite, a soft ash-grey button down that he mostly wears to sleep in.

But he had left it on top of his dresser, he was sure.

He picks it up, finds it wet.

For a moment, he's confused and looks toward the ceiling, searching for a leak he knows isn't there.

Water is not this viscous.

Mohinder raises his hand in front of his face, watches the pearlescent strands stretch between his fingers and catches a faint chlorine scent, the undercurrent of musky-pollen…

_…Mohinder is pinned to the wall, arms splayed like a victim of crucifixion. And Sylar is on him, one hand tangling in Mohinder's hair, jerking his head back, the other pressing firm against Mohinder's throat, fingertips resting on his pulse. The length of Sylar's body is flush against him and Mohinder can feel the unmistakable presence of an erection pressing into his hip. He's not sure of the look the crosses his face—whether it's terror or disgust or an amalgam—but Sylar just smiles at him and swoops forward, catching Mohinder's lips with teeth and tongue._

_When Sylar finally pulls away, his mouth glistens with blood. "First things first," Sylar says, voice low and full of a strange intimacy. "We're going to talk about this list…"_

Memory is obstructed by nausea and the next thing Mohinder knows is that he's in the bathroom—tile cold and unforgiving beneath his knees—dry heaving into the toilet until his belly aches and his throat is raw.

He takes one moment to rest his face against the cool porcelain, before his spine pulls taught and he straightens—blood rushing to his ears and blotting out the sound of his neighbors, the growl and grunt of traffic below—and he thinks:

_Semen dries within a few hours._

_

* * *

_

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-**_

_**

* * *

**_

The wind rises, blows a few threads of rain against Sylar's lips, his eyelashes.

He drops silently from the rooftop to the fire escape, winds his way to Mohinder's window and peers inside to find the man asleep on the couch, half buried beneath a frayed blanket, gun on the table, within arm's reach.

Sylar smiles.

He knew Mohinder had found the shirt. Had heard the man's heartbeat stutter from four stories up followed by the unmistakable sound of retching and then the slam of doors and windows as Mohinder searched the apartment, the outer hall; the rattle of iron as he stepped out onto the fire escape, casting his eyes up, but not seeing Sylar looking over the edge of the roof, obscured as he was by evening shadows.

Now, Sylar stands in the beginning of a storm, presses his fingers to the window glass, traces the outline of a sleeping Mohinder.

What he'd told Mohinder the other day had been true. Sylar hadn't been begging for his life. He'd been offering Mohinder the chance for escape. The chance to be done with it all. To go about his life as if he'd never met "Zane."

But Mohinder hadn't backed down. He wouldn't back down. And when Mohinder had squeezed the trigger, Sylar had known that was it.

He'd shut his eyes to still a hot surge of want only to have it rush through him like a tidal wave when he opened his eyes and saw the terror, the awe that was all over Mohinder's face when the man realized the bullet he'd intended to put in Sylar's skull was hanging in mid-air.

That look… There were an infinite number of ways Sylar could inspire that look in Mohinder.

He wanted to try them all.

He'd taken his time getting out of the chair.

And Mohinder—_pretty_ Mohinder—had stood there. Terrified. Heartbeat pounding in Sylar's ears. But he hadn't shrank away. He didn't plead. Didn't beg.

He wasn't at all like his father.

The only sound he'd made was a gasp when Sylar had flung him against the wall. And that gasp Sylar had swallowed down before it was fully formed, pressing his mouth over Mohinder's, curling his tongue up and licking the hard palate before drawing back and biting hard into Mohinder's lower lip, the bittersweet copper taste of blood flooding his mouth.

And when he'd pulled back, Mohinder's eyes were wide, pupils blown, and focused on him. Seeing him. For that moment, he'd had Mohinder's undivided attention.

And then Petrelli had shown up and fucked over everything.

Well, maybe not everything...

He'd still been able to get to the artist.

Sylar reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out the small sketch book he'd liberated from Mendez's loft; he opens it, using his body to block the wind.

The only drawing inside is rather crude, considering it was sketched atop a windy roof in the dark, but the details are unmistakable.

Mohinder, the lines of his body lithe and sleek, reclines on a bed, balanced on his elbows. His right hand tangles in the thick blanket and his head is thrown back in a cry, throat exposed. Sylar—broader, paler—kneels between his legs, one hand on his chest, holding Mohinder in place as he buries his head between the man's thighs.

There's one detail that's particularly striking to Sylar.

The way the fingers on Mohinder's left hand curl—wanting, urging—against the back of Sylar's head.

Sylar places the sketchbook back in his pocket and stares through the window, just beginning to streak from the drizzle.

His only regret with this power, is that he has no idea how long it will be before that picture becomes reality.

* * *

End?


End file.
